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• A victory for transparency
• Take note! We're offering new subscriber options for our content
• What's the latest on teacher evaluation?
• Getting the Teacher Prep Review right
• Guest Post: How we stopped guessing and hired smart

NCTQ's Teacher Prep Review has received broad support from state chiefs, district superintendents and children's, civil rights, and minority advocacy groups across the country, all committed to improving the nation's public education system and the teaching profession.

Still, many teacher prep programs continue to block access to basic course materials such as syllabi and student teaching handbooks.

Yesterday, a court in Minnesota delivered a summary judgment ordering the Minnesota State Colleges and University system to deliver the documents for which we asked in our open records ("sunshine") request for our Teacher Prep Review. One line from the decision is particularly noteworthy: "Any way this case is analyzed, NCTQ is entitled to the syllabi copies it seeks."

At the heart of our Teacher Prep Review is a simple idea: the more information that aspiring teachers, district and school leaders, teacher educators and the public at large have about the programs producing classroom-ready teachers, the better all teacher training programs will be.

In our effort to produce the first comprehensive review of U.S. teacher prep, we've faced a number of challenges -- perhaps the most serious of which has been the argument made by some universities that federal copyright law makes it illegal for public institutions publicly approved to prepare public school teachers to make public documents that describe the training they provide.

You can read the full decision here.

While we hope this decision proves persuasive to other institutions we are having to take to court in other states, including the University of Minnesota system, we are also pursuing other strategies to get the material we need, particularly from resistant privates, which need not comply with an open records request. We have launched our "Right to Know" ad campaign, appealing to students to help by providing us with the course materials we seek. Student groups on two campuses have organized to take action, insisting that faculty share their syllabi with anyone who wants to view them, including the common sense notion that students should be able to view a syllabus before signing up for a course. Read more.

Starting in November, we're making big changes, allowing you to customize the content you get from NCTQ. You'll need to u update your preferences to proceed.

DAILY OPTION

Daily TQ news clips: We're taking public our own internal news clip service and we promise you that this will be the best daily news clip service you'll find covering TQ developments. Hands down.

MONTHLY OPTIONS

Teacher Quality Bulletin (TQB): Starting this month, our aging 10-year-old newsletter, TQB, is getting a serious face lift. However, it will still be a one-stop shop for big TQ news, new research, unfettered opinion, new job postings, and favorites from our blog.

CONTENT SPECIFIC TO YOUR NEEDS

	District-Level Updates: If you have a particular interest in tq developments at the school-district level, you'll want to sign up for this. Nancy Waymack, NCTQ's Managing Director of District Studies, and her team will make sure that readers stay au courant with district news, particularly the latest contract negotiations. If you subscribe to this content, you'll also automatically receive the monthly Tr3 Trends e-letter. Each month, we draw data from our Tr3 database to highlight the latest trends in school district policies and collective bargaining agreements nationwide. In October, we looked at changes in how teacher performance is evaluated and factored into pay and layoff decisions. In this issue, we see how these changes, mostly made at the state level, are playing out on the district level. Read more.
	State-Level Updates: If you have a particular interest in state-level policy developments, this option is for you. Sandi Jacobs, NCTQ's Managing Director for State Policy, and her cracker jack State Teacher Policy Yearbook team will keep you up to speed with the dizzying pace (we never thought we'd say that) of state policy developments on teacher quality.
	Teacher Prep Updates: There's actually only one organization in the country where you can get regular updates on teacher prep news and that is us. Arthur McKee, NCTQ's Managing Director of Teacher Prep, will keep you informed not only on the ins and outs concerning NCTQ's Teacher Prep Review, but also any new developments in this increasingly **hot** area

With so much change happening on states' teacher evaluation and tenure policies, it can be hard to keep up.

Fear not: we've done the tracking so you don't have to. Building on our Trends and Early Lessons on Teacher Evaluation and Effectiveness Policies from last fall, State of the States 2012 is now available. This report is one of five briefs distilling the essential components of our State Teacher Policy Yearbook. (Four other briefs are available as well, covering teacher preparation, alternate route certification, cultivating an effective teacher workforce and utilizing evaluations when considering teacher dismissal.) Read more.

This month, we launched a "due diligence" process for our Teacher Prep Review. We invited 49 ed schools to review our preliminary findings of their elementary and secondary ed programs. Based on their response, we'll ascertain whether or not we need to adjust our methodology prior to the release of our Review in the spring, thereby ensuring the accuracy of our ratings. An added bonus for the institutions that take part in the process: they may present us with evidence if they feel our findings are in error. A win-win for all. Read more.

In this guest post, Scott (last name withheld by request), a middle school mathematics specialist, describes how his school has tried to make better hiring decisions. One of its strategies has been to have job prospects submit videos of their teaching. Unfortunately, Scott finds all too frequently a lack of preparation in crucial skill areas from novice teacher candidates. Read more.